The Forum tonight is packed with about 1200 women and about 12 men, for this live iteration of the much-praised podcast.
The patriarchy is, unsurprisingly, not out in force for this event. Host Deborah Frances-White starts proceedings as they mean to go on: ie very funny, and very serious at the same time. A difficult mix to pull off, you might think, but it succeeds tonight 100%.
Deb kicks it off in style with plenty of punchy jokes, but also starts a campaign there and then, by asking the audience if there’s any feminist action they are taking at the moment. Yes; two women, cross-country runners, point out that English Athletics make a rule for cross-country running (but no other running event) that men will race 6 miles, but women are only allowed 4. Why? Are their wombs going to fall out? So Deb immediately starts setting up an online campaign for gender equality in the sport and advises the audience how to join in on it.
Then there follows some fabulous feminist fun from ace stand-ups Suzie Ruffell, Kemah Bob, and Tiff Stevenson (not the space here to say why they’re all brilliant), and the first half finishes with two hard-hitting songs from number one protest singer Grace Petrie.
A nice feminist action in the interval: at the toilets the queue for the Ladies is, as usual, enormous. But no queue for the Gents, ‘cos there are hardly any gents here. So the women invade the Gents, passing by the urinal- using men to use the cubicles themselves.
The second half has a less formal structure, the comics sitting on sofas and armchairs, along with Jamie Klingler, an organiser of the silent vigil, that the Met police violently disrupted, for Sarah Everard, the woman murdered by one of their own serving officers.
Also onstage is barrister Pippa Woodrow who represented the organisers in court against the Met, and won their case that they had acted unlawfully! Hooray! But have the Met taken note? Seemingly not. They’re appealing the verdict. But the fight for justice goes on.
There are also representatives onstage of a group that helps women victims of sexual violence. All this discussion is taken very seriously, but also with warmth and humour.
And there is also one male onstage: Rory, Pippa’s baby son, who gets passed around by the gang, lucky boy!
The performance winds up with another two powerful songs from Grace Petrie. She’s a sort of re-incarnation for our time of Sylvia Pankhurst, with the same never-give-up total commitment to feminism, and equality, justice and compassion in all politics – and she plays a mean guitar as well!
Nobody, but nobody, does rebel songs better. Really inspirational stuff, and has the audience on its feet, roaring.
And with everyone in the building joining in on singing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” this warm and passionate event draws to its close. We live in dark times. This has been an evening of light.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: *****